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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650873">like the waters i cannot drink</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundermount/pseuds/sundermount'>sundermount</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:06:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650873</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundermount/pseuds/sundermount</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps you notice how denial is so often the preface to justification.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd &amp; Dedue Molinaro, Minor Mercedes von Martritz/Dedue Molinaro - Relationship, Unrequited Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>like the waters i cannot drink</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Felix’s fingers are on his hand.</p><p>One heartbeat, two heartbeat, three—</p><p>Dimitri pulls away.</p><p> </p><p>This is how a dance goes:</p><p>You escort your partner to the floor, then turn to face and greet each other. You step up to them, line your hands up and arrange yourselves as required—the touch of palm and fingers through glove, the other gloved hand on a waist.</p><p>Dimitri has not tolerated touch for well over a decade. He has on his thickest pair of gloves, but the warmth or cool of his dance partners’ hands still bleed through; it takes significant effort to maintain his composure, to not shudder or flinch away.</p><p>The music starts. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.</p><p>Dimitri turns around and Felix is there, and he cannot help but look. So he does. One-two-three—</p><p>He turns back.</p><p> </p><p>“Must you be so greedy, to want my brother this much only when you cannot have him?” Glenn asks.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Dimitri says. “I know he is happy. Yet I cannot help myself.”</p><p>“How are you so sure that he is happy?” Glenn asks again, the poison of his voice sticky honey. It has to be, if his goal is to get Dimitri to try it. Just one lick. Don’t you like that? It's interesting in your mouth, isn't it? Do you want another try? Here you go. A spoonful? Help yourself. And before Dimitri knows it, he will have consumed the whole jar, and the honey is trapped in his mouth. Gluing it shut. Sludge in his blood.</p><p>At least Glenn’s spectre this time does not resemble Dimitri's last memory of him, of how he looked at Duscur.</p><p>“I don’t. But I must believe in it. It is the only way I will not do something I r— it is the only way nobody will be hurt.”</p><p>“I was very sure you were going to say “do something I regret” there, Dimitri.”</p><p>“I will never regret whatever brings me Felix. That is what scares me.”</p><p>“If that suits you, Your Highness.” A pause. “It’s Your Majesty now, isn’t it? Congratulations on your new title.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“It’s a shame I couldn't be there to see it,” he says, and walks away.  “Goodbye for now, Dimitri.”</p><p>The back of his head and the way he wears his hair is eerily similar to Felix’s. Dimitri stretches out an arm, as if to entreat him to stay.</p><p>Dimitri wakes up.</p><p> </p><p>“Bo— Dimitri.”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“I—ugh. I hate doing this. I’m only going to say this once, so—”</p><p>“I’m listening.”</p><p>“Will you allow me to <em>finish</em>—”</p><p>Dimitri keeps mum, filling his head with whatever he can to distract from what he knows is coming. He focuses on the press of his feet against the insoles of his boots. The feeling of his shirt, tight and almost constraining on the skin near the inner bend of his elbow. The give of fabric under his hand.</p><p>“— and I are together. I thought you should know.”</p><p>Felix is not looking at him. He swallows past the lump in his throat and closes his eyes. He hopes his tone will be as disaffected as he wishes it to be.</p><p>“I’m happy for you.”</p><p>“Are you not going to say anything else?” Felix turns to look at him, takes in what is surely Dimitri’s worst attempt at composure—the armrest creaking under his hand, the far-off look in his eye.</p><p>“Only that I wish you all the best.”</p><p>“Nothing about how it wouldn’t be received well by others? To keep it quiet until a more stable peace has been established? To carry on our duties, and produce children with crests?”</p><p>Dimitri finally meets his gaze, his own expression surely fraught. “Felix, when have I ever asked that of you? Any of you?”</p><p>“Never.” Felix maintains eye contact for a beat before looking away, a hint of something lurking beneath his sharp gaze—that, or Dimitri is reading too much into things he wants to see. “That’s what makes it difficult,” he mutters, almost too low for Dimitri to catch.</p><p>(But he does, because the words are clear on Felix’s lips as he shapes them.)</p><p> </p><p>At the tail-end of winter, when the snow begins to melt and the ice over the lakes begins to crack, Gustave takes him to a spring high in the mountains.</p><p>He hammers the surface of it until ice turns to slush and Dimitri is able to slip into it.</p><p>His howl would have shook the mountain itself, if not for Gustave’s palm over his mouth. The shock of cold on his skin is the most painful sensation Dimitri has ever felt in all of his eight years, and his immediate reaction is to jump out. He is kept where he is, thrashing in Gustave’s grip.</p><p>“Heat will not kill you, but the cold will. You would do well to learn to survive in it.”</p><p>When he is past shock and veering into numbness, they commence his lessons. </p><p>He already knows how to swim, from his lessons in the summer. He does a good enough job at staying afloat even though he cannot feel his legs; there is no skill to be found, only desperate kicks attempting a mimicry.</p><p>One. Take a deep breath, submerge your face in water. Resurface when you cannot breathe.</p><p>The burn of ice-water on his face is awful. Dimitri stays, until he is unsure of what his nose will do—inhale water because he cannot feel it, for instance—then resurfaces.</p><p>Two. the same, but with your eyes open.</p><p>The pain is worse. He opens his eyes and resurfaces immediately after, pressing the heels of his palms as he heaves. He does it again, better-prepared now. It still hurts. He is still kicking, even as he cannot feel his legs.</p><p>Three. Bringing the entire head underwater.</p><p>Dimitri struggles with this, his child’s body lacking the strength and weight needed for water to envelop him fully.</p><p>“I will aid you for now,” Gustave says. “Until we can further develop your strength.”</p><p>His hand is on Dimitri’s back, pushing him down. The crushing pressure on his head hurts the most; he opens his eyes and mouth and screams, but there is no sound, nothing except the bubbles of air that escape him. The hand on his back continues to hold him down. His eyes sting, but it is nothing compared to the bind around his head, the tension between his eyes.</p><p>He has not revisited this memory in a while. The last time he had the chance, he was preoccupied with holding his breath in frigid waters while lying in wait to ambush Imperial soldiers. In any case, it would make a fitting metaphor.</p><p>“How do you feel about His Grace’s relations, Your Majesty?” </p><p>Dimitri looks up. The pressure on his head is immense; he feels as if he is screaming under water again. But what good does that serve when there is nobody around to help him?</p><p>(He had not done so, not once during those five years.</p><p>What good would screaming do, when he was already beyond saving? He could only focus on his revenge, on putting one foot in front of the other.</p><p>On being able to lift his lance high enough to deliver salvation unto all those poor soldiers who deserved a quick death by his hand instead of the reality they would have to live with after everything was over; haunted by the women and children and old they’d killed because they had no other choice but to <em>obey</em>. Death would be far preferable.)</p><p><em>It makes me miserable</em>, he does not say.</p><p>“He informed me of it prior to making it public.” So much power he wields, that people were afraid of shaping their opinions before hearing his. That they would hew at their own views to be less masterful recreations of his own, to be more palatable to him.</p><p>“I have given him my best wishes, along with my sincerest hopes that his relationship will be a long and happy one.”</p><p><em>Liar</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Running a nation is draining. He keeps a more rigid schedule now than when he was determined to prove himself as a prince, because he knows he needs it to prove himself as king.</p><p>Eight hours of sleep is not enough to fight the mental tiredness sometimes, when he is exhausted even though he has not moved from his desk for the entire day. This is why today—and only today—he will allow his control to slip a bit, while he stands behind Felix as they look out the window.</p><p><em>Just this once</em>, he does not lie to himself.</p><p>“Is that Dedue and Mercedes?” Felix asks. An entirely rhetorical question, because Felix already knows the answer. His vision is far better than Dimitri’s.</p><p>“Yes,” Dimitri replies. “They’ve been courting.”</p><p>“I didn’t know about that.” Dimitri does not snort. As if he had the opportunity to, gallivanting about with— Stop. <em>Stop</em>. He promised himself he would not do this.</p><p>His voice is even, lacking in the bitterness that boils and threatens to poison each and every word. “I would be surprised if you did. You barely pay attention to these things—besides, Dedue told me and no-one else, and that was because it would affect his ability to serve if he married.”</p><p>“What do you mean, affect his ability to serve?” Felix ignores his dig and turns around to look up at him. It is only now that Dimitri realises how close he is.</p><p>One, two, three.</p><p>Dimitri moves out of his space to stand next to him instead, a respectable distance away.</p><p>“It means that his duties as my vassal would be severely impacted, considering their wish to open a school.”</p><p>“Dimitri.” Felix touches him, holding on to his forearm. “Why have you not told me?”</p><p>“It is not of any concern now.” He smiles at the sight of Mercedes on her horse, pressing a kiss to the scars on Dedue’s lip and cheek before she rides off.</p><p>“Not of concern <em>now</em>? He should know better—think about the arrangements that would have to be made when he leaves, the people we will have to train and hire to your personal guard—”</p><p>“<em>If</em> he leaves,” Dimitri emphasises. “He wishes to propose only when everything has settled, and he is unsure if her affections for him will last until then.”</p><p>He continues without waiting for a response. “I think it would, given how besotted they are with each other. They are both gentle souls, and I have long wished for him to have someone who can be as fiercely dedicated and loyal to him as he is to me.”</p><p>Felix's grip on him tightens.</p><p>He looks back, watching as Felix’s jaw sets, and relaxes. Sets and relaxes again. He can only imagine that Felix is doing the mental equivalent of the furious scribbling and note-taking he does during meetings.</p><p>“Don’t grind your teeth,” he chides.</p><p>“Don’t tell me what to do,” Felix shoots back. His jaw twitches now that he has caught the tic, torn between not grinding down or doing so out of spite. It grinds down a final time, harder, before Felix forces it to relax. Dimitri has never seen anyone as forcefully relaxed as Felix is, as if he cannot help but also be contrarian in the way he takes his rest.</p><p>(It would have happened after Duscur, when Dimitri had not been looking. Everyone knew Felix was the most difficult to wake, if he did not achieve a certain amount of sleep—it was why their parents and minders had been so strict about having them in bed by a certain time as children, so the next day’s activities could be carried out as planned.)</p><p>“I would not dare presume to do so. Not that you would take my direction unless you found it justifiable, in any case.”</p><p>Felix glares at him. Dimitri raises a brow in answer.</p><p>“Your ideas aren’t <em>all</em> bad.” A concession. Felix’s hand is still on him.</p><p>Dimitri finally pulls his arm away, and turns to watch Dedue make his way back into the castle. It is serendipitous that the act itself also allows him to look at Felix’s reflection.</p><p>He raises the hand that had been around Dimitri’s arm and presses the fingers of it to his lips.</p><p>“He’ll propose. I’ll look into bolstering your personal guard, as well as potential locations for their school in the area we’ve zoned for the Duscur residential district.”</p><p>The upward curl of Dimitri’s mouth is visible in his reflection. “Thank you, Felix.”</p><p> </p><p>There were two types of people: the ones who did not want to care and only did so out of obligation; and the ones who did because they were watching for a slip-up, any slip-up.</p><p>This is the first type: <em>Are you okay?</em> A gaunt, wizened hand on his shoulder, faintly trembling. <em>Please say yes</em>, the strained smile and etched lines on the side of their eyes scream at him. <em>I will not know what to do if you are not</em>.</p><p>And the second: <em>How are you, Your Highness? I am sorry for your loss</em>. Their expressions are appropriately morose, but they know not of how to fake the sentiment of it, and it shows in their eyes. <em>I am watching you, princeling.</em></p><p>His answer is always the same. He counts to three in his mind, then an <em>I am okay</em> even if he sees fire and blood every time he closes his eyes. He has to pretend to be, for his own sake.</p><p>The trembling hand grips his shoulder once, tight, pulls back. <em>Sorry for taking liberties, Your Highness, but I am glad to hear you are coping well</em>. Then they walk away, their guilt assuaged by a simple question-asking.</p><p>People want the out of a convenient lie. “We didn’t think he’d be like this,” they’ll say. “We asked him if he was fine, and he said he was.” No. They could tell, all of them, but none of them wanted the burden of the truth.</p><p>It will be something he learns later on, when he realises how easy it is to sell the illusion of a reality people are desperate to believe in. Messing up his sheets so it will look like he has slept; purchasing additional lamp-oil with his personal funds so nobody will suspect how much he has burned through at night while he works feverishly.</p><p>But the concept is simple enough to grasp, even for a child of fourteen.</p><p>The second type, however. Their eyes will blink, greed momentarily shuttered by flesh before they reappear; tinged with a hint of impatience and exasperation. Disappointment. Increased scrutiny. <em>I am glad to hear it. I bid you well.</em></p><p>They’re waiting. They will be watching, closer than ever, because they do not want the lie. The lie would be detrimental to their own interests.</p><p>“How are you feeling, Your Highness?” Dedue asks. Dear, kind, darling Dedue. It is he who should have been asked that question, his loss far outweighing Dimitri’s, and yet he has been shunned for something his countrymen have only allegedly done.</p><p>Must one bear the sins of the few?</p><p>“I am merely tired, Dedue. Thank you.” He takes a sip of the tea Dedue has brewed to be polite, even as his stomach roils. Then another, and another, until the cup is finally emptied.</p><p>“This is very good tea,” he says. Dedue pours him another cup.</p><p>“It is chamomile, and is said to have soothing and calming properties,” Dedue answers.</p><p>Sweet, safe Dedue who never pushes, never expects anything from and of him.</p><p>Felix, however. he begs for Dimitri to talk to him. Cries at him. For him to be worried about <em>Dimitri</em>, who caused Glenn’s death—Felix’s beloved older brother Glenn—he has no right at all to take the hand that is offered to him.</p><p>There is also fear there. Fear that if he lets go, he will not be able to pull himself back to where he needs to be, be strong enough to return to the bow with the same draw weight, sustain the same tension for as long when he pulls the bowstring taut again. That his relief at relief would be too much.</p><p>That is why he cannot, because he is dependent on this feeling. If he lets it build, it is the only way he will be able to survive this nest of vipers, gain vengeance for the lives lost. For himself. For Dedue, Felix and Rodrigue. For the innocents caught in the fray.</p><p>“Dimitri, please,” Felix had sobbed.</p><p>Dimitri had reached out to pat him on the head.</p><p>“Don’t worry, Felix. I am okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Everything will be okay.</p><p> </p><p>There are thoughts Dimitri does not allow himself to have, not even in moments where he is in desperate want of release. Almost there but not quite, clinging on to the edge of a cliff with only his fingertips except his fingers have dug into the rock and he cannot extricate them from the gouges he has made despite wanting to.</p><p>They come to him unbidden in his dreams: Felix’s breath over him, Felix on his knees in front of him, hair falling out of its tie and ticklish against his inner thighs. Felix’s hands on his throat as he takes his pleasure in him, atop him, and he wakes up to soiled night-shirts and bed linens.</p><p><em>Knock, knock</em>.</p><p>“Dimitri.”</p><p>He closes his eyes. Breathes in, exhales. Does it again. and again.</p><p>His heartbeat finally slows, but he still aches. It would not be difficult to deal with; he is practised at ignoring his urges, but it is still an inconvenience.</p><p>“I’m awake, Dedue. Allow me to take a moment to myself first.”</p><p> </p><p>Dimitri is extremely happy for all of his friends.</p><p>Dedue will be married very soon, and there is no doubt Mercedes will make a most beautiful bride. They will travel to Duscur for their honeymoon after the wedding, and settle in Fhirdiad’s Duscur residential district to start work on their school right after.</p><p>Felix has—</p><p>He is happy as well, and that is all that matters. His smiles come easier and more frequently these days, especially when he is around—</p><p>Dimitri is very glad for him. Ecstatic for the both of them.</p><p>Glad. Happy. Ecstatic. <em>Overjoyed</em>. Elated. He will run out of words to use very soon.</p><p>Loneliness is to be expected when one is King. It will pass—it is not as if he does not still see his friends, the ones that know him as <em>Dimitri</em>—but he will feel the loss of Dedue starkly, as he already does Felix.</p><p>Not that he can tell Dedue as much. It had been more than easy to sell Dedue on the dream he had already discovered was within his grasp; it had been less easy to pacify that overprotective streak of his.</p><p>It helps that Dimitri has an active want to take care of himself these days, but those conversations still took quite a bit of effort to craft. Reining in his own self-deprecation, having to inject the appropriate amount of assuredness and belief in his expression while Felix informs Dedue of how he will handle things in his stead. </p><p>Firm plans lend to the veneer of certainty, as they’d learnt in their months of governance. It did no good to say <em>we will do this</em>, when all everyone wanted to know was <em>how</em> it was to be done, and <em>when</em>.</p><p>He can already hear Felix in his head, a <em>Don’t be ridiculous. I’m still here, am I not?</em>, to which Dimitri will have no rebuttal against. It is technically true. His relationship has had no obvious impact on the friendship they are tentatively feeling out. In fact, besides that first time, it has not been brought up again.</p><p>Nobody should have to bear the burden of his irrational concerns. He will feel better once he sits with them for a while.</p><p>“I’ll miss Dedue.” He still ends up confiding in Felix that night. They have just finished their once-weekly bout of sparring, and the cover of night makes it feel <em>safe</em>, lends itself well to the thoughts that itch at the back of his throat that are lying in wait to spill themselves.</p><p>He takes the silence as an invitation to continue. “I know it is entirely irrational, given that we will be seeing him and Mercedes often— but it will be lonelier here.” A pause, to laugh. “I apologise if I made it sound like you are not still here, you and everyone else. As if I do not receive the blessing of your friendship and company. Allow me to indulge in my ridiculousness for a moment.”</p><p>Felix’s expression is hidden by shadow and dark; Dimitri cannot tell what he is thinking.</p><p>“Your feelings aren’t ridiculous,” Felix says slowly, as when he first tests a sword that is new to him. Weighing it in his hand before he swings it.</p><p>Dimitri laughs again, heartier than his previous forced chuckle. “Have you and Dedue been discussing ways to handle my moods? Will you be reporting my comings and goings to him as well?”</p><p>“Shut <em>up</em>.” The answer comes swiftly. Parrying a blow with a familiar, favoured blade. “No. Yes. Stop smiling.”</p><p>“We can barely see each other, let alone the path in front of us. How would you even know if I’m smiling?”</p><p>“I can tell.”</p><p>Dimitri knows Felix is scowling. He can see it, clear as day in his mind’s eye. It is extremely easy to be with Felix right now, no light to illuminate them, no pretense at anything else. Like when they were children and whispered secrets to each other under the cover of the blanket and coverlet. He laughs again.</p><p>“It’s because you’re laughing.”</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>“I know you’re smiling, because you’re laughing. You only ever laugh like this when you’re happy.”</p><p>“I do, do I?”</p><p>“Your laughs are different. Anyone who knows you would be able to tell.”</p><p>Dimitri lets the warmth of his statement fill him, spreading through his body like a hot drink by a fire after braving the Faerghan winter. Felix had said it so simply, like it was a given and as easy a task as counting to ten. <em>Anyone who knows you would be able to tell</em>. As if he could not fathom why people would not be able to nor want to.</p><p>When they encounter the first lit wall-sconce since leaving the training grounds, Felix turns to him and huffs a pleased sound.</p><p>“You’re still smiling.”</p><p>“I am happy,” Dimitri says, and means it this time.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dimitri.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mercedes and I are both well, and we have begun work on planning lessons and scheduling the children that have enrolled—thirty of various ages, and counting. I will not bother you with unnecessary details.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The following may be presumptuous of me, but I could only say this in a letter, and as a man who finally calls you friend. I understand His Grace is the best person to inherit the responsibilities I can no longer see to, but I entreat you to look into the next-best alternative for your own sake.</em>
</p><p><em>His presence—</em> and Dimitri stops reading there, folds the letter up and massages at his temples.</p><p>“Is that Dedue?” Felix asks off-handedly, his brow furrowed as he leafs through the census reports Ferdinand had dropped off ahead of schedule.</p><p>“Yes,” he replies. Felix’s hair is at an awkward growing-out stage right now, and his hand reaches up once every few minutes to push it back behind his ear.</p><p>He will do so again, in three, two—</p><p>Dimitri’s hand gets there first, pushes that strand of hair behind his ear for him. His finger traces the curve of Felix’s ear. He holds himself taut, even as he forces his hand to stay relaxed and continue moving.</p><p>One, two, three. His finger stills. This would be when he reins his desire in, breaks contact.</p><p>Four.</p><p>Felix’s nose wrinkles, still absorbed in the report in his hand.</p><p>Five. Six. </p><p>Seven. Eight. Nine.</p><p>Ten.</p><p>Dimitri’s hand falls back to his side.</p>
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